


All That Glitters

by NoelleAngelFyre



Category: The Flash (TV 2014), The Flash - All Media Types
Genre: Blood and Injury, Brother/Sister Relationship, Characters trapped together, Gen, Goldenvibe if you squint, Hurt/Comfort, Kind-Of Enemies to Friends, Museum Robbery (as plot device), Pre-Relationship (ColdFlash), Pre-Slash, Protective Barry, Trapped in a Museum Vault, Unexpected Friendship, angst with happy ending, father/son relationship, post episode s02e03 Family of Rogues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-25
Updated: 2020-07-25
Packaged: 2021-03-06 04:35:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25517386
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NoelleAngelFyre/pseuds/NoelleAngelFyre
Summary: He was just trying to have a day off.
Relationships: Barry Allen & Caitlin Snow, Barry Allen & Cisco Ramon, Barry Allen & Henry Allen, Barry Allen & Leonard Snart, Barry Allen & Lisa Snart
Comments: 6
Kudos: 90





	All That Glitters

**Author's Note:**

> Something a little different from my usual ColdFlash fandom. I really enjoy playing with the possibilities of a friendship between Barry and Lisa, and that little idea turned into 4K words and spawned a multi-chapter sequel to be posted later. No one can ever accuse me of doing things halfway. :)
> 
> Disclaimer: I own nothing.

He was just trying to have a day off. That’s it.

“How long have we been in here?” Lisa’s voice is a soft murmur to his left; she sounds calm, treading the fine line between ‘relaxed’ and ‘tired’, but not her usual confident self. The makeshift bandages around her arm, fabricated from Barry’s sweater, have a dark stain slowly blossoming outward. The bullet wound, while effectively a graze rather than a straight shot into the skin, might be worse than either of them initially thought.

It doesn’t take Barry long to figure out she isn’t relaxed at all. She’s forcing herself to stay calm, to keep her heartbeat as steady and tempered as possible, before she risks bleeding out. No doubt a trick learned either through personal experience or from stitching her brother up.

Barry glances down at his watch. “…Three hours, give or take.”

The room temperature has dropped a bit since they were unceremoniously thrown in here, the sound of the lock being fired off lodging Barry’s heart into his throat, which tells him night is approaching. He has no idea how insulated these walls are; granted, one would hope that a room housing priceless acquisitions for the museum would be reasonably controlled, but as trigger-happy as those assholes were, Barry would not be shocked if they shot the thermostat as well as the lock.

He was just trying to have a day off. Take some of his amassed paid leave from the CCPD, let the police handle any emergencies (just shy of meta-related), and indulge in some nostalgia. He loves the museum. Always has. Some of his best childhood memories are of the museum, eagerly dragging his parents to and from random exhibits with a look of uninhibited rapture on his face. Sure, the place looks a lot smaller now than when he was, like, seven, but it was nice to be somewhere familiar. Some place that has only good memories attached.

“What are you thinking about?”

Barry blinks and looks at her, confused, “Sorry?”

“Without that mask, your face is pretty much an open book – oh, don’t give me that look.” Lisa rolls her eyes, “Lenny might be able to keep a secret, but I never forget a face…or a voice. You should work on disguising your vocal chords a little.”

“ _Like this_?” his throat vibrates, the words distorted on the air, and she grins.

“Too little, too late for me. But that might fool someone else.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.” He really should be more concerned about this, about yet another wanted criminal knowing his identity, but at the moment…he doesn’t care. He is locked inside a museum vault with Lisa Snart, she has a bullet graze across one arm, he doesn’t have his comm link or any part of his suit, there’s no service on his phone, and he just does not _care_. “And in answer to your question…I was thinking about the other times I came to the museum, when I was a kid.”

“With your parents?” she seems eager to latch onto a distraction and Barry is happy to oblige.

“I dragged them to this place so many times.” He shakes his head with a light chuckle, “I don’t know how they put up with me, running around like a maniac. Making them go through the whole tour two, three times in a single day.”

“And you weren’t even trying to steal anything.” It’s an inside joke, a playful callback to her brother’s little escapade stealing the Kahndaq Dynasty Diamond from this same museum. Seems like a lifetime ago, when Leonard Snart was just another criminal to be stopped and Barry didn’t even know Lisa existed.

“Speaking of which,” Barry lolls his head to the side again and lifts an eyebrow in a knowing look, “what’d you actually make off with?”

Lisa bends forward and reaches into the pocket of her discarded jacket, draped loosely over her knees, “Not quite what I was hoping for,” her fingers withdraw, a glittering string of diamonds coiled around the slender shape of her hand, “but they are a girl’s best friend.”

“Diamonds suit you.” He smiles quietly, “Not as well as gold, but pretty close.”

“You getting soft on me, Flash?” this time, the smile falls a little short; tiny beads of sweat are breaking out across her forehead, and Barry feels dread pool in his gut. The stain is getting bigger, darker.

“Maybe.” He shifts onto his knees to get a better look, “I need to change this…it’s not doing any good now.”

“It’s fine.” She sounds breathless, and her uninjured arm keeps shifting across her stomach. “Just—”

“Lisa, what…?” Barry freezes, eyes catching a dark stain – a second stain – on her lower left side. Without waiting for permission (or asking for it), he grabs her hemline and yanks up. The spreading stain of another bullet wound, a prominent hole of gleaming red, greets him.

“Why didn’t you tell me you were hit a second time??” his voice pitches with anxiety that he doesn’t even try to control at this point. He can’t salvage his sweater enough for new bandages on her arm and stomach.

“Didn’t…” she swallows again, “Didn’t want to…make a fuss.”

“Lisa, this isn’t a coffee stain.” There are no other options: he jerks his shirt, a plain blue offset to the gray of his sweater, off and immediately starts tearing the fabric into long strips, “You were _shot_.”

“Not the first time, thank you very much.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah – you and your brother have an exclusive collection of battle scars. I know.” With utmost care, he probes around the side, praying he’ll find an exit wound – and success. This bullet went through. And yes, even a through-and-through is not ideal (compared to, you know, not getting shot at all) but at least Barry doesn’t have to worry about the bullet being lodged inside. He can just worry about her going into shock and suffering blood loss, because a bullet ripping into the abdominal wall is no joke.

“Not used to having someone like you fuss over me.” Lisa says softly, watching as he fastens a strip from his shirt around her arm as a tourniquet, uses another bit of sweater to wrap around the wound itself, and then goes back to the other bullet wound, “And being so gentle. Lenny…” a hitch when he starts applying pressure, albeit with an apologetic look, “…Lenny’s always bending my ear while stitching me up.”

“Just tell me you give it back when the positions are reversed.”

“Damn straight.” The grin is weak, not her usual cock-sure sassy swagger, but good enough. For now, it’s the best he can hope for.

***

The minutes tick by into hours. There’s still no service on his phone. Lisa doesn’t have her burner, and Barry can’t even be upset with her for it when a) there’s no service anyway and b) it doesn’t make any sense to carry a phone when your brother and his partner are traipsing across the state lines, no doubt pulling some kind of job that will make the evening news.

Oh, and Barry didn’t bring any protein bars. He can already feel his blood sugar dropping.

As spacious as this room technically is, Barry feels like he’s locked in an elevator. He has too much energy, too much adrenaline spiking through his system, and he’s ready to start clawing at the walls just to get them _out of here_. Lisa needs a doctor – _now_.

He throws his head back, heaving a sigh, and freezes as his eyes look up. There’s a window.

Granted, it’s a window about fifteen, maybe twenty, feet up, no wider than an air vent, but it’s a window.

“Lisa,” he drops to his knees, “look. There’s a window.”

“’s too small.” She’s slurring her words a little, but clears her throat and tries again, “We’ll never fit. You…you need to get out of here. I’ll be fine.”

“I’m _not_ leaving you.” Barry declares, no room for question in his tone. Even if he wasn’t so determined to see this through, to get both himself and Lisa out of here alive and together, there is a matter of semantics to consider. He’s ninety-five percent sure this room is airtight to protect the artifacts inside. Trying to phase through the walls would just expend energy which he doesn’t have, especially since he’s now approaching six hours without food.

He backs up to the other side of the wall, as best a running start as he can hope for, takes a few deep breaths, and shoves his body unceremoniously into overdrive. He briefly glimpses Lisa jerking her head away, no doubt momentarily blinded by the sudden burst of lightning, before his feet successfully scale the wall and he’s got one hand clutching the little window ledge. Like, this thing is disgustingly tiny. Who designed this? They should be drug out into the street and shot.

He throws an elbow through the glass and winces at the rush of cool night air – that, and the feeling of glass shards cutting into his bare skin. Ow.

Throwing one arm over the window ledge and clinging for dear life, he wrangles his phone from the other pocket and holds it up. One bar…two bars…three…four…five. Five bars. Success.

He punches out the numbers as fast as his thumb can move, then pushes the phone to his ear and listens with baited breath. It rings twice.

“Dad? Dad!” Barry swallows, already feeling the throbbing ache against his arm as the ledge and glass dig into bare skin, “Please tell me you’re still in town?”

He is. _Oh, thank you, Jesus_ , Dad’s still in town. “Listen – there’s not a lot of time. I’m trapped in the museum vault with a friend. She’s hurt. Bad. Took two bullets – worst one is to her stomach. Creeps who locked us in here shot the damn lock off the door. Call Cisco – I put his number in your phone last week – and get him over here. I don’t care if you have to blow the door down – just please – hurry!”

That’s as much energy as Barry can muster. He ends the call and shoves his phone back into the closest pocket. His arm is about to give out in three seconds, maybe five, and the only available option is waiting below. Barry swallows, screws his eyes shut, and lets go.

“Barry?!” Lisa’s voice greets him as he crashes back down to earth like a failed space shuttle launch, “Barry, speak to me! Let me know you’re still breathing!!”

“…I think I dislocated my shoulder.” He croaks. Really, though, there is no ‘thinking’ about it – he did dislocate his shoulder, and it hurts like hell. If this is how his days off are going to go, he’s clearly safer running around town as the Flash. Or lying in the middle of the road, covered with leaves, waiting for traffic.

“Did…did you get a hold of anyone?”

“My dad. He’s…he’s coming.” Barry rolls himself over to the other side, pushes himself upright with the good arm, and drags himself to the wall. “He’s getting Cisco to get us out of here…but until then…” he grips the other arm and shifts it into position. He can just feel Lisa’s eyes widening as she watches him, then hears the catch of her breath as she realizes just what he’s doing.

“Barry, you’re not…”

He shifts the limb into place, grits his teeth, and pops his shoulder back into the holster, “ _Fuck_ …” he groans, two seconds after the sickening crack of bone against bone.

“I’m not sure what shocks me more.” Lisa mumbles, hand over her stomach with a clear look of discomfort, “That you know that word or that you knew how to set your shoulder.”

“You break as many bones as I do on a daily basis, you learn quick remedies.” Barry mumbles, leaning heavily into the wall. In the dim light, he can see perspiration smeared thick across her forehead and along the back of her neck. Her breathing is labored, the hand across her stomach clenching at random. The bandages have held up well enough, but the same red stain is blossoming in small patches across the blue fabric.

“You’re shaking.” She whispers, now sounding like every word requires a supreme amount of effort.

“Hypoglycemia.” Barry huffs; cold air from the open window is not helping the situation – although, all things considered, a brisk evening air is refreshing compared to Snart firing the cold gun at him at point-blank range, “I haven’t eaten in six, almost seven hours. Blood sugar is crashing.”

“How much do you…” she swallows, licking her lips, “…have to eat?”

“Ten thousand calories a day, at minimum.”

“So how long until you’re in a coma?”

“Probably around the same time you’ll be in shock from blood loss.” There’s absolutely nothing humorous about the situation, but his brutal honesty does manage to pull a tiny grin out of her. Then, in the next second, it’s gone.

“I think…” her voice is shaky, the beads of perspiration breaking out fresh in the heave of her breast, “…think I’m beating you…to the punch…on that one.”

***

It’s one thing for him to feel helpless as the Flash. A burning building falls apart faster than he could get everybody out. A car accident results in the spread of gasoline where there are fallen power lines. Eobard Thawne masquerades as Harrison Wells for fifteen years and destroys countless lives in pursuit of one selfish goal. He faces down Leonard Snart, cold gun aimed directly at the heart, and knows he will go to his grave not holding Snart accountable for pulling the trigger when Lisa’s life is on the line – and still hoping, praying, against all odds that he won’t do it.

As Barry Allen…he’s found, more recently than ever before, that he lives a very sheltered life. His adopted parent is protective to a fault but entirely devoted. His father served fifteen years for a crime he didn’t commit but can now live out the rest of his days a free man. His best friend and the closest thing he’s ever had to a sibling is energetic, passionate about her job, and has only the best intentions even on the days when they disagree. He has a steady job at the precinct and makes enough money to keep a roof over his head and food on the table.

This might be the most helpless he’s ever felt as Barry Allen or the Flash. And he hates it.

“Lisa,” his fingers gently stroke across her damp brow and along one cheek; she looks painfully young right now, her head atop his thighs and cradled protectively in one arm, skin pale and hot to the touch, with a furrow between slim eyebrows that speaks louder to her discomfort than words ever could, “Lisa…c’mon, you gotta wake up.”

“Cold…” she whimpers. A single tear swells under her eyelashes.

“I know. I know you’re cold. But I need you to stay awake.” His thumb strokes her jaw, “Your body is trying to shut down. You have to stay with me.”

“…Lenny…” she sounds innocent, childlike, and Barry’s heart cracks to hear it, “…want Lenny…”

“Shhh…it’s okay.” Ignoring the pang of discomfort from his reset shoulder, he brings both arms around her for warmth and whatever comfort might be found in the embrace, “It’s gonna be okay, Lisa. I promise.”

 _Cisco…Dad… **where** are you?_ His imagination is racing at a thousand miles a minute, envisioning horrible infections, her body growing cold in his arms…having to tell Snart his baby sister died because Barry was too weak as himself, as the Flash, as any kind of hero. And yes – in the back of his mind, he knows he should be more mindful of his own situation, that he can feel his body shutting down possibly faster than Lisa’s. But…right now, it just doesn’t matter. What matters is getting Lisa back to her brother.

In the silence, the low buzz of what sounds like an electrical socket, or a drill, announces itself from the door. Barry blinks away his blurring vision, focuses through the low lighting, and gets a sudden spike in adrenaline when he sees sparks spitting out from the shadows. The hum grows louder, louder, and the sparks fly faster.

“Lisa,” he squeezes her uninjured shoulder, “Lisa, look. Cisco’s here. We’re okay.”

His stomach plummets when she only manages a tiny moan. No. Absolutely not. They have not survived this long only for it to end this way. No way in hell.

The door falls literally off its hinges with a resounding _thud_ , and Cisco emerges carrying a chainsaw (no doubt altered for this specific situation) like an amateur lumberjack. Behind him, the face Barry was longing to see even more, “Barry!” his dad rushes forward and sinks to one knee, clearly assessing both Barry and Lisa, “My god, son, you’re shaking.”

“His blood sugar’s crashing.” Cisco accurately assumes, pushing a pair of protective goggles up his forehead and smearing his hair comically in the process, “We gotta get them both back to the lab.”

“I can run Lisa there.” Barry forces his legs to cooperate, gingerly sweeping Lisa into a protective embrace, “You two meet us. Caitlin can get started with Lisa.”

“Dude, you can barely stand.” Cisco hasn’t looked this stressed in a while – actually, probably not since Professor Stein’s vitals crashed and they suffered through more than one scare of losing him, “You’re liable to shut down entirely and crash into a wall.”

Barry would be lying if he said there isn’t an issue of pride here, and were he of a clearer mind, he would probably take Cisco’s concern into greater account. But, let there be no mistake, he is decidedly NOT of a clearer mind right now.

He skids into S.T.A.R. Labs, ignoring the slight burning odor coming from his shoes, and immediately yells for Caitlin. He finds her waiting in the medical wing, worry lining every inch of her face as she watches him gently set Lisa down on the bed, “Help her. Please.” He pants, “She’s…she’s lost…a lot…a lot of…blood…”

“Barry!!” he hears Caitlin cry out his name, right as the world goes sideways. Then it all goes black.

***

The room is dark. Darker than normal, that is. There’s a single light, no brighter than the nightlight he had in his room as a kid, somewhere in the corner. The air feels cool, though not uncomfortably so, and there’s a blanket draped over him. He flexes both arms, testing the movement. There’s no hint of an IV needle under the skin anymore, but he has no question as to how many used bags are hanging close to his bedside.

He pushes out a low groan, mostly because his body feels like he just got taken out by a train, and leans back into the pillow. It’s a poor substitute for his own bed, but better than the floor he hit on his way down.

“Well, well, well,” a low and abundantly familiar drawl breaks the silence from his left, “Sleeping Beauty finally awakens.”

“Snart…” Barry squeezes his eyes, once, then rolls his head to the side; the older man is draped casually in a chair, parka hanging loose over the back, with one leg slung over the other, “When did you…how did you even know to come here?”

“Your sister made a point of getting this little debacle on the evening news.” Snart answers; he drops the one leg back to the ground, and Barry can glimpse the cold gun in its holster around the man’s upper thigh, “Pretty sure we invented a few new traffic violations, getting back here.”

If Rory was driving, Barry has no problem believing that assessment. “Lisa?”

“Sleeping. Apparently your old man stitched her up while Snow was fussing over you.” There’s a pause, then Snart’s usual dry tone smooths out into something almost polite, “He’s a decent guy, your dad. Guess the apple didn’t fall far from the tree.”

Barry smiles a little and makes a mental note to inform his father of this assessment – especially since he knows it takes an act of God to impress Leonard Snart in any capacity. Testing out his limbs a little more, he finds them willing to move and carry his weight out of bed. If he had to guess, Cisco is probably the one who redressed him in lab sweats, which at least is a step above parading himself around in underwear. Snart doesn’t need any more ammunition to use against him during a heist.

“She knows, by the way.” He says, adjusting the hem down over his waist, “So you don’t have to keep a lid on that anymore.”

Snart only cracks half a smirk and nods, before the expression one again morphs into something softer. Barry follows his gaze and sees Lisa in the next bed. She’s also been redressed, a simple cotton t-shirt and likely the same on her lower half. He can see fresh white bandages around her injured arm and an IV feeding fluid through the other arm.

He didn’t register Snart moving past him, but when he blinks, Snart is standing at his sister’s bedside with an expression that almost makes him look vulnerable. Or at least as vulnerable as Barry has seen him since Lewis put a bomb in his own daughter’s neck and turned her into leverage just to steal a handful of rocks.

“You stayed with her.” It’s a statement, not a question, but Barry nods anyway.

“I wouldn’t leave her.”

Something unidentifiable passes through those blue eyes before it’s blinked away and Snart looks down to brush a loose curl behind Lisa’s ears. “Thanks.” He says it so softly, barely a whisper, that if Barry hadn’t been facing him the whole time he probably would have never heard the words come out of his mouth.

“Barry,” his dad’s voice, as soft as when Barry was little and crying from a nightmare, is the best kind of distraction to ask for; without precedent, he’s wrapped firmly in an embrace with fingers combing through his hair, “You gotta stop scaring me like that, alright?”

“No promises.” Barry cracks a grin and earns an affectionate cuff under the chin for it.

“Mister Snart,” Dad says, and Barry hides another grin at Snart’s tiny blink of surprise; the guy probably hasn’t been addressed so politely in all his life, “as your sister’s self-appointment physician, I’m going to insist on two weeks of rest – not negotiable. After that, the stitches will be ready to come out. I can give you basic instructions on how to remove them, if you’d like.”

“…if you’ll still be here, in town,” Snart says, after a lengthy pause, “might as well have you do it. She seems to like you.”

Ah, yes…put any hint of human emotion back on the little sister. Heaven forbid Leonard Snart admit his gratitude more than once in a twenty-four-hour period.

“I’m sure I can find a reason to stick around.” A large hand ruffles Barry’s hair, “Apparently my son still needs someone to keep an eye on him.”

Barry can see the tiniest bit of envy flutter across Snart’s face. It’s an odd feeling…to be even remotely guilty for having a strong and loving relationship with the man who brought him into this world, just because he knows such a bond is something Snart may have experienced only in long-lost childhood fantasies.

“And you,” the same hand lightly taps Barry under the chin, “need to call Joe. He’s losing his ever-loving mind.”

“Will do.” Barry zips out in a crackle of lightning and flutter of papers, then returns in dark-wash denim and a simple sweatshirt, “After I’m done with that…movie night at my apartment?”

“Sounds good.”

Barry grins, “See you then.” He takes three steps out the door, then pauses with a little smirk, “Hey, Snart,” he makes a point to wait until he has the man’s attention, then throws a wink for effect, “tell Lisa she can keep the diamonds.”


End file.
